pect of ruin and dilapidation. It is disgusting also, to see the scenes of domestic society and seclusion thrown open to the gaze of the curious and the vulgar; to hear their coarse speculations and jests upon the fashions and furniture to which they are unaccustomed,—a frolicksome humour much cherished by the whiskey which in Scotland is always put in circulation upon such occasions. All these are ordinary effects of such a scene as Ellangowan now presented; but the moral feeling, that, in this case, they indicated the total ruin of an ancient and honourable family, gave them treble weight and poignancy.
It was some time before Colonel Mannering could find any one disposed to answer his reiterated questions concerning Ellangowan himself. At length, an old maid-servant, who held her apron to her eyes as she spoke, told him, "the Laird was something better, and they hoped he would be able to leave the house that
